Sunday 4 September 2011

Fight Club!

Ancient people found their clothes got clean when they washed them at a certain point in the river. You know why?
No.
Becuase human sacrifices were once made on the hills above this river, bodies burned, water seeped through the wood and ashes to create lye, this is lye,

the crucial ingredient. Once it mixed with the melted fat of the bodies, a thick white soapy discharge crept into the river. Let me see your hand please…
what is this?...
This is a chemical burn…
(Quoted from the movie Fight Club…we have no idea if this is really true)
Ok, we won’t show you the picture right away, we’ll give fair warning to the squeamish first.
On Fight Club, they make soap out of human fat! Ew! Well, don’t worry, that’s not what we do. But we do use the same process!
Remember the scene where Brad Pit kisses/spits on Edward Norton’s hand and pours lye on it?! (quoted above)…then Norton’s hand starts to sizzle? Well, we can learn something from this movie; it’s not just for entertainment. Well, maybe it was but the teacher in me can pull something educational from ANYTHING!
Anyways, if you are squeamish, do not look at the picture below because I am about to show you what it looks like to be burned by lye (NaOH), a chemical used to make soap.
Let me give you some space to scroll down and prepare yourself…
There, you have had fair warning. This is what it looks like to be burned by lye.

Ok, maybe that was anticlimactic but there are far worse pictures if you google it and they were way to gross to post. Look up 'Lye Burn' and you'll know.

So, let us tell you about safety while making soap. We wear a lot of safety gear when making soap. Take a look:

What are we wearing? Well, we make sure we have the smallest amount of exposed skin possible. We wear large, long sleeved, button up shirts with the collar turned up, aprons, pants…not shorts, socks and shoes, nitrile gloves, safety goggles, and painter’s masks.
We also keep a spray bottle of vinegar nearby just in case we get lye on our bare skin to neutralize the burn. (This is how Pit neutralizes the burn on Norton’s hand)
Why do we wear safety goggles when we already have glasses? If you splash lye onto your glasses it will eat through whatever coating you have on your glasses and you will either have to live with permanent spots on your glasses or get new lenses. We're speaking from experience on this one. Also, what if you splashed your face and it dripped into your eye? …Hm, I don’t really want to think about that…*shudder*
So what have you learned from the Soap Sisters today? Yes, that’s right, don’t show any skin! Not only is showing too much skin inappropriate for young people, but you could get HORRIBLY BURNED.

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